DP11.11 crash on open and bandwidth choking

[larrytheo]

I'm having problems with some ugly behavior using DP 11.11 with a 96 kHz/24-bit session. The session is not especially large, maybe half a dozen stereo tracks and the same number of audio tracks, about the same number of VIs and audio plugins. It's really not a heavy session, and my Late 2013 Mac Pro has handled more in the past.

But this session keeps crashing on open. DP opens and says it is reading the session, then crashes. If I keep trying, it will eventually open. Once it is open, it will sometimes decide to pop up a dialog saying that DP is having a problem playing and it recommends setting my buffer higher, but it is already set to 2048.

I am running macOS Mojave and using MOTU interfaces.

Is anyone else seeing this? Any suggestions as to what might help?

[waterstrum]

I had something roughly similar and used the load function in a new blank session.
Voila, it worked fine.
That said, Mojave and the old Intel gear is getting long in the tooth.

[dix]

I believe these are two unrelated problems.

Regarding the crash on open, I'm getting this too in DP11 on certain projects (at 48/24 and no buffer issues). Could be a plugin causing it? I haven't had time to troubleshoot, but a workaround, that works more often than not for me, is to open the project while in MIDI Only mode, and enable MAS after project is open....the crashed thread in the Crash Log isn't showing me anything useful.

[larrytheo]

Somehow, in all of these years of using DP, I had never tried the Load function. Embarrassing, as it would have come in handy many times for many things.

Anyway, I tried that suggestion. I had a number of sequences I needed from the old document, but I only loaded those I felt were absolutely crucial, figuring that if it worked, I could always load others when they become needed. So far, it seems to have helped, but it is not yet clear how much. After loading them all, the document crashed on open the first time I tried opening it, but then has been OK since.

Similarly, the first time I tried to play it I got the same dialog telling me the audio engine was overwhelmed, but it seems to be working since. So, I'm not sure whether or not the problem is resolved, but it does seem to have been helped.

Thanks for that idea! I'm sure I'll have other uses for Load in the future.

I also checked and found that I still have DP10 on my disk, so if all else fails, I might be able to fall back to that.

[larrytheo]

I believe these are two unrelated problems.

Regarding the crash on open, I'm getting this too in DP11 on certain projects (at 48/24 and no buffer issues). Could be a plugin causing it? I haven't had time to troubleshoot, but a workaround, that works more often than not for me, is to open the project while in MIDI Only mode, and enable MAS after project is open....the crashed thread in the Crash Log isn't showing me anything useful.

Well, of course, it *could* be a plugin issue. Different chunks are behaving differently, which leads me to believe it is reacting to what is in the active chunk, or at least, reacting the most to that. In no chunk am I using a lot of plugins, and the plugins I'm using are pretty standard stuff: MOTU, Waves, Universal Audio, iZotope. If I have to, I'll try making a copy of sequence, removing all plugins, and see what happens. Nothing kills creation like extended troubleshooting procedures.

[James Steele]

I don't know if it's a plugin issue, but I do know that when running DP 11 natively, and thus utilizing whatever MOTU did under the hood to let us use non-native plugs via Rosetta 2 *while* DP is native, some plug ins cause issues. They'll load up, but usually you just get a full stop MAS error upon initiating playback. The lexicon MPX native plug was one of the culprits for me. Lexicon is busy blowing them out right now on sale with no mention if they'll ever be M1 native. Yikes.

[larrytheo]

I don't know if it's a plugin issue, but I do know that when running DP 11 natively, and thus utilizing whatever MOTU did under the hood to let us use non-native plugs via Rosetta 2 *while* DP is native, some plug ins cause issues. They'll load up, but usually you just get a full stop MAS error upon initiating playback. The lexicon MPX native plug was one of the culprits for me. Lexicon is busy blowing them out right now on sale with no mention if they'll ever be M1 native. Yikes.

Not sure what you mean by "natively." Are you talking about running on new Mac hardware? My machine is still Intel, which I'm hanging onto until it just won't work anymore - which could be soon.

[James Steele]

I don't know if it's a plugin issue, but I do know that when running DP 11 natively, and thus utilizing whatever MOTU did under the hood to let us use non-native plugs via Rosetta 2 *while* DP is native, some plug ins cause issues. They'll load up, but usually you just get a full stop MAS error upon initiating playback. The lexicon MPX native plug was one of the culprits for me. Lexicon is busy blowing them out right now on sale with no mention if they'll ever be M1 native. Yikes.

Not sure what you mean by "natively." Are you talking about running on new Mac hardware? My machine is still Intel, which I'm hanging onto until it just won't work anymore - which could be soon.

Yeah... sorry. I didn't read your config. I thought about that after I posted. Hope you can isolate the cause.

[larrytheo]

No apologies,James. I cannot begin to tell you how much you and this site have helped me over the years. I probably need to update my config listing anyway!

[larrytheo]

Oh, y'all are gonna LOVE this:

I appear to have solved the choking on playback problem. I was troubleshooting a sequence by removing things from it one at a time and then seeing if it would play without the audio overload error. After removing all plugins, I started removing tracks. (Of course I had a copy of the entire document.) After removing one particular stereo track, suddenly it played fine. I experimented with putting it back and got the error. The track was a bounce that had a single soundbite for the entire song. I deleted the track, created a new track, dragged the exact same soundbite into it, and it played fine. And so did a few other sequences that had been having playback problems.

So I opened my document copy (after about seven attempts), removed the nasty track from it, recreated it as before, and just finished working in it for about an hour without seeing the playback error since removing that track. All plugins are in place.

All I did was remove one stereo track, then recreate it exactly and that solved the error. A true What the Frog?!

I am, however, still having the crash on open issue, and the new document I created and used the Load command on to import sequences is having it, too. However, other documents of entirely different songs are NOT crashing on open, so maybe I can do some more troubleshooting and find another bizarre thing causing that problem.

[James Steele]

Oh, y'all are gonna LOVE this:

I appear to have solved the choking on playback problem. I was troubleshooting a sequence by removing things from it one at a time and then seeing if it would play without the audio overload error. After removing all plugins, I started removing tracks. (Of course I had a copy of the entire document.) After removing one particular stereo track, suddenly it played fine. I experimented with putting it back and got the error. The track was a bounce that had a single soundbite for the entire song. I deleted the track, created a new track, dragged the exact same soundbite into it, and it played fine. And so did a few other sequences that had been having playback problems.

So I opened my document copy (after about seven attempts), removed the nasty track from it, recreated it as before, and just finished working in it for about an hour without seeing the playback error since removing that track. All plugins are in place.

All I did was remove one stereo track, then recreate it exactly and that solved the error. A true What the Frog?!

That's weird! I'm pretty sure I've had something similar like that happen to me. Somehow.. some sort of corruption finds its way into a track and things like that happen. Bizarre, but glad you found it. Hope you get the remaining glitches solved.

[mikehalloran]

A true What the Frog?!

Nope. This is an oldie but goodie. You found a corrupt header in an audio file. DP haaaaates these. There is one studio that sends me tons of these per year when I was on DP 4.51. In 2018, I had a live concert sent to me captured on a CD recorder — when I loaded those files into DP 9.51, they sounded horrible and, in 9.52 crashed my Mac big time—which is when I learned about APFS Snapshots.

The solution is easy: Strip the header and rewrite a new one. Converting an .aif or .wav file to a .wav file is one way. The raw audio remains unchanged. In a way, that’s what you did. QuickTime and AppleMusic/iTunes can be set up to do this but it’s a little convoluted for me. There are many utilities that can batch convert and do a much faster job (some might be free). I use TwistedWave but also can use DSP-Quattro

When I get files from that one studio (still!), I automatically batch convert them all. TW will convert a few hours worth in a couple minutes and sort them back to their original folders or dump them into a new one as I want. I let it overwrite the old—like Ron Popiel, I set it and forget it. Hmmmm I just realized, I’ve been dealing with that studio for 20 years—what the hell have they been doing?

[larrytheo]

Huh. Not exactly sure what you mean. I used not only the same file the second time, but the same soundbite, that is, I never removed the soundbite or file from the document. I just deleted the track, created a new track, and dragged the exact same soundbite from the Soundbites window into the track.

However, I have several ways I can open the file raw and rewrite it with a new header, if that proves to be the actual problem.

[larrytheo]

OK, more progress, this time on the crash on open bug.

Working on a copy of the document (natch), I started deleting chunks, starting from the most recent and going back in time, and, after deleting each chunk, seeing if the document would boot without crashing. (My biggest use for chunks is to store timestamped copies of a song over time in its development). After deleting all the chunks I'd created since August, I got to where I was able to consistently open the document without crashes.

I now have to go to the first chunk that causes a crash (the last deleted) and try to figure out what in it is causing the crash, so there is still more painstaking work to do, but I'm getting there, bit by bit!

[larrytheo]

Well, well, well.

I updated to DP11.2 aaaaand....puh-roba-lem solved. My session opens fine every time.

BOY, did I waste a lot of time trying to troubleshoot that one.

Sigh.